A new era of flood control strategies from the perspective of managing the 2020 Yangtze River flood

Flood control of the Yangtze River is an important part of China’s national water security.In July 2020,due to continuous heavy rainfall,the water levels along the middle-lower reaches of the Yangtze River and major lakes constantly exceeded the warning levels,in which Taihu Lake exceeded its highest safety water level and some stations of Poyang Lake reached their highest water levels in its history.In August 2020,another huge flood occurred in the Minjiang River and the Jialing River in the upper Yangtze River,and some areas of Chongqing Municipality and other cities along the rivers were inundated,resulting in great pressure on flood control and high disaster losses.The 2020 Yangtze River flood has received extensive media coverage and raised concerns on the roles of the Three Gorges Dam and other large reservoirs in flood control.Here we analyze the changes in the pattern of the Yangtze River flood control by comparing the strategies to tackle the three heavy floods occurring in 1954,1998,and 2020.We propose that the overall strategy of the Yangtze River flood control in the new era should adhere to the principle of"Integration of storage and drainage over the entire Yangtze River Basin,with draining floods downstream as the first priority"by using both engineering and non-engineering measures.On the basis of embankments,the engineering measures should use the Three Gorges Dam and other large reservoirs as the major regulatory means,promote the construction of key flood detention areas,keep the floodways clear,and maintain the ecosystem services of wetlands and shoals.In terms of non-engineering measures,we should strengthen adaptive flood risk management under climate change,standardize the use of lands in flood detention areas,give space to floods,and promote the implementation of flood risk maps and flood insurance policies.The ultimate goal of this new flood control system is to enhance the adaptability to frequent floods and increase the resilience to extreme flood disasters.     

The soil Microbial Carbon Pump as a new concept for terrestrial carbon sequestration

Soil is a huge terrestrial carbon pool, which has higher carbon storage than the sum of atmospheric and terrestrial vegetation carbon. Small fluctuations in soil carbon pool can affect regional carbon flux and global climate change. As soil organic carbon plays key roles in soil carbon storage and sequestration, studying its composition, sources and stability mechanism is a key to deeply understand the functions of terrestrial ecosystem and how it will respond to climate changes. The recently-proposed concept of soil Microbial Carbon Pump(MCP) emphasizes the importance of soil microbial anabolism and its contributions to soil carbon formation and stabilization, which can be applied for elucidating the source, formation and sequestration of soil organic carbon. This article elaborates MCP-mediated soil carbon sequestration mechanism and its influencing factors, as well as representative scientific questions we may explore with the soil MCP conceptual framework.     

Geophysical evidence for thrusting of crustal materials from orogenic belts over both sides of the Yangtze Block and its geological significance

Based on deep geophysical detections, we have reconstructed the crustal structure from the eastern margin of the Tibetan Plateau to the Jiangnan-Xuefeng orogenic belt. The results suggest that the Yangtze Block was overthrusted by crustal materials in its NW direction from the eastern Tibetan Plateau but in its SE direction from the Jiangnan orogen. These overthrusting effects control the crustal structure from the western Sichuan to the western area of the Jiangnan orogen-Xuefeng orogenic belt. The eastward extruded materials from the eastern Tibetan Plateau were blocked by the rigid basement in the Sichuan Basin, where upper-middle crust was overthrusted whereas the lower crust was underthrusted beneath the Sichuan Basin. The underthrusted unit was absorbed by crustal folding, shortening and thickening in the Yangtze Block, forming the Xiongpo and Longquan Mountains tectonic belts and resulting in the NW-directed thrusting of the Pujiang-Chengdu-Deyang fault, and the western hillsiden fault in the Longquan Mountain. These results provide resolution to the controversy where the eastward extrusion material from the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau had gone. Overall, that Yangtze Block was subjected to thrusting of the crustal materials from the orogenic belts over its both sides. This finding has implications for the study of the intracontinental orogenic mechanism in South China, the reconstruction of tectonic evolutionary history and the kinematics processes during the lateral extrusion of the Tibet Plateau.     

Variations of widespread extreme cold and warm days in winter over China and their possible causes

The two leading modes of winter surface air temperature(SAT) over China during 1961–2017 are a spatially consistent pattern and a north-south dipole pattern. Based on the two leading modes, the characteristics of the extreme cold and warm days in the two patterns, defined by the standard deviation larger than 1.28 or smaller than-1.28 in the time series of the two leading modes, are analyzed. With the increase of winter SAT during 1961–2017, the number of spatially consistent extreme cold days decreased and their occurrence was restricted to late December to early January, whereas the number of spatially consistent extreme warm days increased significantly in January and February. Global warming is associated with an increase in the spatially consistent extreme warm days and a decrease in spatially consistent extreme cold days, but has little relation to the sum of extreme cold and warm days of either the spatially consistent or north-south dipole pattern. The Siberian High(SH) is the main factor controlling the sum of spatially consistent extreme warm and cold days. The strong(weak) SH before(after) the1990 s corresponds to an increase(decrease) in the sum of the spatially consistent extreme warm and cold days. The occurrences of extreme south-cold-north-warm and extreme south-warm-north-cold days are related to the north-south difference of the SH.When the center of the SH is in mid-high latitudes, the extreme south-warm-north-cold(south-cold-north-warm) days occur more(less) often. During the winters of 1961–2017, the total number of extreme cold and warm days of the north-south dipole pattern changes negligibly. The North Atlantic meridional overturning circulation(AMOC) may be the main factor affecting the sum of the extreme cold and warm days of the two types of SAT pattern in China.     

Detailed mapping of the surface rupture of the 12 February 2014 Yutian Ms7.3 earthquake,Altyn Tagh fault,Xinjiang, China

Large-scale detailed mapping plays a key role in revealing the rupture characteristics and mechanisms of strong earthquakes.Relatively few studies have been performed on the surface ruptures of large earthquakes in central and western Tibet due to its remote nature and high elevation.Based on high-resolution unmanned aerial vehicle(UAV)photography,we mapped the coseismic surface rupture of the 2014 Yutian M_s7.3 earthquake.Along the western Altyn Tagh fault system,the earthquake produced~37 km of surface rupture along the South Xor Kol fault(southern section S1),Xor Kol fault(central section S2)and Ashikule fault(northern section S3).Section S1 has a 16-km-long surface rupture with an average sinistral offset of 52±25 cm and a maximum offset of~90 cm,while section S3 has a 14.2-km-long surface rupture with an average sinistral offset of 36±21 cm and a maximum offset of~84 cm.A compilation of 5308 cracks yields an average crack width along the southern section of 85±71 cm and a maximum width of~700 cm;the average width along the central section is 39±21 cm,and the maximum width is 243 cm;and the average width along the northern section is 61±44 cm with a maximum of~340 cm.In addition,the average cumulative opening across rupture zone is 3.4±2.9 m along the southern section,with a maximum of~17 m;4.3±3.6 m along the central section,with a maximum of~13 m;and 1.7±1.6 m along the northern section,with a maximum of~6 m.Evidently,the average crack width and cumulative opening decrease towards bends and steps along the fault.A global synthesis of surface rupture distributions corresponding to strike-slip earthquakes indicates that the rupture zone is wider near the complex parts of fault geometries(such as bends,steps and fault bifurcations)than along straight sections,suggesting that the fault geometry has an obvious control on the surface rupture width.The widespread cracks at the intersection between the Xor Kol and South Xor Kol faults may indicate that an extensional regime is more likely to produce distributed offfault deformation,which provides an observational constraint for the numerical simulation of dynamic rupture on a fault.In addition to coseismic surface rupture,the Yutian earthquake also produced a large number of gravity-driven slides on alluvial fans with gentle slopes.The friction efficiency of the water-bearing salt layer beneath fans could decrease the sliding threshold and trigger instability under surface shaking.These distributed deformations and gravity-driven slides reflect the coupling between the rupture propagation and fault geometry and indicate that the rupture may have propagated in two directions along the Ashikule fault after passing through a step.Therefore,the investigation of coseismic surface rupture provides important observational constraints on the dynamic rupture process.     

Coupled and splitting bedload sediment transport models based on a modified flux-wave approach

Numerical modeling of free-surface flow over a mobile bed with predominantly bedload sediment transport can be done by solving the shallow water and Exner equations using coupled and splitting approaches.The coupled method uses a coupling of the governing equations at the same time step leading to a non-conservative solution.The splitting method solves the Exner and the shallow water equations in a separate manner,and is only capable of modeling weak free-surface and bedload interactions.In the current study,an extended version of a Godunov-type wave propagation algorithm is presented for modeling of morphodynamic systems using both coupled and splitting approaches.In the introduced coupled method the entire morphodynamic system is solved in the form of a conservation law.For the splitting technique,a new wave Riemann decomposition is defined which enables the scheme to be utilized for mild and strong interactions.To consider the bedload sediment discharge within the Exner equation,the Smart and Meyer-Peter&Müller formulae are used.It was found that the coupled solution gives accurate predictions for all investigated flow regimes including propagation over a dry-state using a Courant-Friedrichs-Lewy(CFL)number equal to 0.6.Furthermore,the splitting method was able to model all flow regimes with a lower CFL number of 0.3.     

Numerical simulations of shake-table experiment for dynamic soil-pile-structure interaction in liquefiable soils

A shake-table experiment on pile foundations in liquefi able soils composed of liquefi able sand and overlying soft clay is studied. A three-dimensional(3D) effective stress fi nite element(FE) analysis is employed to simulate the experiment. A recently developed multi-surface elasto-plastic constitutive model and a fully coupled dynamic inelastic FE formulation(u-p) are used to model the liquefaction behavior of the sand. The soil domains are discretized using a solid-fl uid fully coupled(u-p) 20-8 noded brick element. The pile is simulated using beam-column elements. Upon careful calibration, very good agreement is obtained between the computed and the measured dynamic behavior of the ground and the pile. A parametric analysis is also conducted on the model to investigate the effect of pile-pinning, pile diameter, pile stiffness, ground inclination angle, superstructure mass and pile head restraints on the ground improvement. It is found that the pile foundation has a noticeable pinning effect that reduces the lateral soil displacement. It is observed that a larger pile diameter and fi xed pile head restraints contribute to decreasing the lateral pile deformation; however, a higher ground inclination angle tends to increase the lateral pile head displacements and pile stiffness, and superstructure mass seems to effectively infl uence the lateral pile displacements.     

地震日常分析会商数据库管理软件

介绍了地震日常分析会商数据库管理软件研制的思路.该软件构建了最优的数据库表结构和Excel模板,实现了会商登记卡、震情监视报告、首都圈地区震情短临跟踪动态等信息的浏览、新添、删除、修改、保存、打印,具有首都圈地区各学科异常频次自动统计、绘图等功能.     

Seismic performance of a rectangular subway station with earth retaining system

Much effort has been made in investigating the seismic response and failure mechanism of rectangular subway stations,however,the influence of earth retaining systems has generally been ignored in previous studies.This paper presents a numerical study on the seismic performance of a rectangular subway station with/without earth retaining systems by taking fender piles as the example,and aims to illustrate how the existence of fender piles affects seismic responses on subway stations.The loading conditions of subway stations and their surrounding soils prior to earthquakes are discussed.Next,seismic responses of subway stations with or without fender piles were simulated.Afterward,earthquake-induced deformations of stations and surrounding soils,as well as the internal forces and damage modes of the structural components,were systematically studied.Consequently,the seismic performance of the stations was affected by the existence of fender piles.In addition,earthquake intensity is illustrated.The study showed that deformation modes of surrounding soils and damage modes of stations were different with regard to the existence of fender piles.Meanwhile,earthquake intensity influencing the seismic performance of stations with or without fender piles were found to be opposite.     

Biome reconstruction on the Tibetan Plateau since the Last Glacial Maximum using a machine learning method

Historical biome changes on the Tibetan Plateau provide important information that improves our understanding of the alpine vegetation responses to climate changes.However,a comprehensively quantitative reconstruction of the historical Tibetan Plateau biomes is not possible due to the lack of quantitative methods that enable appropriate classification of alpine biomes based on proxy data such as fossil pollen records.In this study,a pollen-based biome classification model was developed by applying a random forest algorithm(a supervised machine learning method)based on modern pollen assemblages on and around the Tibetan Plateau,and its robustness was assessed by comparing its results with the predictions of the biomisation method.The results indicated that modern biome distributions reconstructed using the random forest model based on modern pollen data generally concurred with the observed zonal vegetation.The random forest model had a significantly higher accuracy than the biomisation method,indicating the former is a more suitable tool for reconstructing alpine biome changes on the Tibetan Plateau.The random forest model was then applied to reconstruct the Tibetan Plateau biome changes from 22 ka BP to the present based on 51 fossil pollen records.The reconstructed biome distribution changes on the Tibetan Plateau generally corresponded to global climate changes and Asian monsoon variations.In the Last Glacial Maximum,the Tibetan Plateau was mainly desert with subtropical forests distributed in the southeast.During the last deglaciation,the alpine steppe began expanding and gradually became zonal vegetation in the central and eastern regions.Alpine meadow occupied the eastern and southeastern areas of the Tibetan Plateau since the early Holocene,and the forest-meadow-steppe-desert pattern running southeast to northwest on the Tibetan Plateau was established afterwards.In the mid-Holocene,subtropical forests extended north,which reflected the“optimum”condition.During the late Holocene,alpine meadows and alpine steppes expanded south.     

On the synchronism in the events within the core and on the surface of the earth: the changes in the organic world and in the polarity of the geomagnetic field in the phanerozoic

The data on geomagnetic reversals are compared with the changes in the organic world and with the lower-mantle plumes. The times of the formation of plumes and the times of their appearance on the Earth’s surface relate to the intervals characterized by the different frequencies of geomagnetic reversals, i.e., there is no interrelation between the formation of plumes and the frequency of the changes in the geomagnetic field polarity. At the same time, a certain synchronism is observed between the frequency of the geomagnetic reversals and the boundaries of the biostratigraphic ages, i.e., the changes in the organic world in the long-period range. A hypothesis is proposed, which explains the change in the sign of the geomagnetic field by the combined effect of the irregular rotation of the internal core relative to the mantle and the changes in the slope angle of the axis of the Earth’s rotation, which, in turn, results in synchronous events on the Earth’s surface: the rates of changes in the organic world.     

On the maintenance of the axisymmetric part of the flow in the atmosphere

Summary The maintenance of the axisymmetric component of the flow in the atmosphere is investigated by means of a steady-state, quasi-geostrophic formulation of the meteorological equations. It is shown that the meridional variations in the time-averaged axisymmetric variables can be expressed as the sum of three contributions, one being due to the eddy heat transport, another to the eddy momentum transport, and a third to the convective-radiative equilibrium temperature which enters the problem through the specification of a Newtonian form of diabatic heating. The contributions by the large scale eddies are evaluated through the use of observed values for the eddy heat and momentum transports.The contributions from each of the three forcing mechanisms to the temperature and zonal wind fields are invstigated individually and found to be of about equal importance. The sum of the three contributions are also presented for the temperature, the zonal wind, the stream function associated with the mean meridional circulation and the corresponding vertical motion. Although the results fail to reproduce the main observed features of the lower stratosphere, they are found to be in good agreement with observations in the middle latitude troposphere. At any pressure level, for example, the computed mean zonal wind has a jet-like profile and the axis of the jet is found to slope to the south with height, as observed in the atmosphere.Based in part on a thesis submitted by the first author as partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Ph.D. degree at the University of Michigan. — Publication No. 194 from the Department of Meteorology and Oceanography, The University of Michigan.     

On the gravimetric undulations of the geoid and the deflections of the vertical

Summary The author mentions the aims of the World-wide gravity project he established in the Ohio State University in Columbus, in 1950. He outlines the practical procedure of the gravimetric computations of the undulationsN and the vertical deflection components and and emphasizes that only by the global international cooperation and additional gravity observations at sea carried out during the last decade it has been possible to gather to Columbus the needed gravity material. Since there exist still large gravimetrically unsurveyed areas it is of vital significance to study what gravity anomalies are best to be used for these regions. The given figures concerning the accuracy of theN, and , estimated theoretically and obtained in practice, indicate that in the gravimetrically well surveyed parts of the world like in Europe and the United States we can get gravimetrically on basis of existing gravity material theN-values with accuracy of about 5–10 meters, and and with the accuracy of about 1. The geoid undulationsN are already computed in Columbus for more than 6000 points of the northern hemisphere. The sample maps show the interesting geoid of Europe and vicinity between the latitudes 60° and 30° and longitude 5° W and 30° E, drafted on basis of more than 1000N-values computed at the corners of 1°×1° squares. It is interesting to realize that the geoid undulations in all this area are positive, the extreme values being between 40 and 50 meters. The geophysical significance of the geoid maps of this kind is pointed out.     

太平洋中部地磁台11年周期变化的研究

综合APIA、HONOLULU、PAMATAI 3个地磁台三分量的11年周期变化的形态后,可定性地提出该变化源于内场。如内源为核幔边界的电涡流,则其中心点应位于3台之间。     

Magnetic stratigraphy of the Ordovician in the lower reach of the Kotuy River: the age of the Bysy-Yuryakh stratum and the rate of geomagnetic reversals on the eve of the superchron

Until recently, the existing data prevented the geophysicists from accurately dating the Bysy-Yuryakh stratum, which outcrops in the middle reach of the Kotuy River, constraining the time of its formation to a wide interval from the end of the Late Cambrian to the beginning of the Silurian. The obtained paleomagnetic data unambiguously correlate the Bysy-Yuryakh stratum to the Nyaian regional stage and constrain its formation, at least a considerable part of it, by the Tremadocian. This result perfectly agrees with the data on the Bysy-Yuryakh conodonts studied in this work and yields a spectacular example of the successful application of paleomagnetic studies in solving important tasks of stratigraphy and, correspondingly, petroleum geology. Within the Bysy-Yuryakh stratum, we revealed a large normal-polarity interval corresponding to the long (>1 Ma) period when the geomagnetic reversals were absent. This result, in combination with the data for the Tremadocian and Middle–Upper Cambrian sequences of the other regions, indicates that (1) the rate of occurrence of the geomagnetic reversals on the eve of the Ordovician Moyero superchron of reversed polarity was at most one reversal per Ma; (2) the superchron does not switch on instantaneously but is preceded by a certain gradual change in the operation conditions of the dynamo mechanism which, inter alia, manifests itself by the reduction of the frequency of geomagnetic reversals with the approach of the superchron. This finding supports the views according to which a process preparing the establishment of the superchrons takes place at the core–mantle boundary.     

On the variation in the geomagnetic dipole over the geological history of the Earth

The global database on the paleointensity, containing determinations of the virtual dipole moment (VDM) for a stable (normal) regime of the geomagnetic field in a time interval of up to 3.5 Ga, is supplemented by new VDM determinations and analyzed. The field generation process started no later than 3–3.5 Ga (earlier data are absent) at the stage of the Earth’s core formation. Since that time, the dipole value has differed from its present value by no more than an order of magnitude, and the deviations that have already been detected tend toward smaller values. The distribution of VDM values in the time interval 0–400 Ma is bimodal, which apparently reflects the presence of two different generation levels of the geomagnetic field distinguished by a relatively large value (close to the present field value) and a relatively small value (approximately half as large as the present value). The total duration of decreased VDM values appreciably exceeds that of increased VDM values (179.1 and 28.6 Myr, respectively). On the whole, data on the paleointensity do not contradict the hypothesis about the dipole nature of the field over the last 400 Myr; however, the number of determinations at high paleolatitudes is too small to draw decisive conclusions on the validity (or invalidity) of the dipole field approximation based solely on paleointensity data.     

Comparison Between the Nutations of the Planet Mars and the Nutations of the Earth

The nutations of the planets Mars andEarth are investigated and compared. Alarge number of interior structureparameters are involved in the nutationcomputations. The comparison between the observations and the computationsprovides several constraints on these parmeters andtherefore allows a better understanding of the physics of the interior of theplanet. For the Earth, the high precision of the observations of the nutationshas led to a very good determination of interior properties of the planet. ForMars, observations of nutations are not yet available, and we review how theamplitude of the Martian nutations depends on the hypotheses consideredfor its interior. Although Mars is very similar to the Earth, its interior is not well known;for example, we don't knowif its core is liquid or solid. Only if the core is liquid,the Free Core Nutation (FCN) normal mode exists and can alter the nutationswhich are close to the resonance. From the observed geoids, it is known thatboth planets are not in hydrostatic equilibrium. The departure is larger forMars than for the Earth, and consequently, the implication of considering a convective mantle instead of a mantle in hydrostatic equilibrium described byClairaut's equation for the initial equilibrium state of the planet is largeron the Martian nutations than on the Earth nutations. The consequences of theuncertainty in the core dimensions are also examined and shown to be of a veryhigh influence for Mars if the core is liquid, due to the potential changes inthe FCN resonance. The influence of the presence of an inner core, which isknown to exist for the Earth, could be more important for Mars than for theEarth if the inner core is large. Due to the presence of Tharsis on Mars, thetriaxiality of this planet has, additionally, larger effects than on Earth.     

Evolutionary Changes in the Configuration of the Magnetic Field of the Solar Corona in the Epoch of the Minimum

Geomagnetism and Aeronomy - The evolution of the magnetic configuration in the solar corona is studied. The curvature of the K-corona helmets obtained from an analytical approximation of the...